now, from this you might deduce, say, "oh, okay, that's why c talks about him all of the times," or maybe, if you're my dad, "what a huge dork", but i, with marika's aid (and by aid i mean listening to me and going "...okay..."), have delved further.

see, there had to be an explanation as to why he can hit such stupid-ridiculous pitches and hold them, and also for why he's weird. humans are more boring than that. luckily, i found clues in his own songs! =D

this gratuitous picspam is to distract you from that i'm insanely silly.

the first thing to arouse my suspicion (what, you thought i was going to put something else in that sentence? get out of the gutter, maybe you're the reason brian keeps complaining that there isn't enough room in it for him) was a line in "hurdles even here", which can be easily summarised as "my wife is pregnant and it is scary": it'll eat you from the inside out / 'till it comes out screaming, 'till it all falls away

humans, however, are generally prone to birthing young in a way that does not kill the mom unless you're doing something wrong! this was around when i started suspecting he might be a shoggoth. why a shoggoth? why not?

possibly a shoggoth would be this fascinated with their own facial hair.

(also, ms. ellis -- as well as their son hank -- is still alive and well and taking pretty photographs and doing art and such. thus, they must have averted the whole birth-by-eating-mom thing! i'm sure they're all very happy about that.)

now, even if hank -- a hybrid even if meloy himself isn't -- came out all human-acting, that doesn't mean his father did. in fact, there's certainly something associated with the circumstances of his (er, colin's, not hank's) birth that he feels guilty about: these lines in "i was meant for the stage" might sound normal (for him) at first, er, auditory glance

the heavens at my birth intended me for stardomrays of light shone down on me and all my sins were pardoned

but if you're assuming those lines follow on logically from each other (...probably they do. you can never be entirely sure with mr. meloy, but), what kind of sins to be pardoned would he have committed during or before being born?

no, this was after. nice try though.

now, c, you're saying, shaking your head at the computer or possibly considering asking me where i got that gif and what it's from (o, valencia! music video. which i really need to rewatch hi), that doesn't mean he's not human.

the fascination with and apparent novelty of human bodies to him would argue against that, you!--wait, what?, you say, interested in spite of yourself (i hope).

i don't just mean, say, the weird ode to people you like's internal organs and other bits under the skin that is "red right ankle". no, i've got something better.

back when he was this bitty:

he had a band called tarkio, and lo, that it was good. and tarkio had a song called "eva luna", which was awesome.

and contained the line and these ankles, so newfangled.

apparently legs are a novelty to him. tentacle monster? I THINK SO. come on, what does it take to get the decemberists fandom to do anything? will this help? ...i kind of want to write a massive AU based on this post, mind.

(also, apparently he thinks this is what you're supposed to do with legs.see also tarkio, "eva luna", 1998: the full line pair is and these ankles, so newfangled / dipped in erigeron, basil, terragon)

addendum: also, if you take the o, valencia! music video as source, he bleeds reddish black. it could be the light, but the fact that he then gets apparently-human blood on his hands and it's lighter seals it, at least for me.

annex: "something extraterrestrial".

among his other things, such as the amazing variable accent and the apparent nonhumanity, mr. meloy seems to have a truly bizarre grasp on gravity. witness:

he spends improbable amounts of time in midair. as if to compromise for that, he also does this a lot:

his already-observed apparent ability to hypnotise people using his voice may be the reason why the rest of the band sometimes joins him.

gravity is a pretty basic thing. where would someone who can't get a hang of it come from?